In which I write down all those musings of which the world has been horribly deprived until this moment.
(Progressive Politics, Liberal Religion, Sex, and the occasional abnormality that bubbles forth from goodness knows where.)

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Terroism Hysteria watch: enough is enough!

Attaturk on Eschaton and on his own blog are finally saying enough is enough when it comes to fearmongering, and that this goes for Democrats as well as Republicans:

I don't want to sound like Billmon here, but neither party has the guts to stand up and truly inform the public on the general "ineffectiveness" and weakness of terror groups. Anyone who actually said so would have the bodies of innocent civilians thrown at their feet and the "fear" words would come in a Katrina-level deluge. Osama and his pals got incredibly lucky on September 11th, so tragic is fate. Yes, they are highly dangerous and intelligence and police work is required. Sadly, any rationality to this clear fact cannot be engaged in now without scorn being brought down upon your head. Being afraid is the mode we are supposed to have, no matter how many times a 73 year old phrase about fear being the only thing to fear is tossed out.

This is going to be a very hard point to get across to the people of America. Images burn themselves into the deepest parts of our minds, but statistics about the extreme unlikihood of actually getting killed by a terrorst bounce off the surface. Add to the fact that an entire political party is basing itself on exploitation of the misperception of terrorism, and you have an obstacle almost impossible to surmount. It is hard to avoid Billmon-esque pessimism here.

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